


where phantoms toss and turn

by wolfchester



Series: heartbreak warfare [1]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: (sorry if you're russian this is probably horribly inaccurate), F/M, everything is okay in the end, i have a lot of feelings about this couple okay, i promise i'll write happy things one day, i try out google translate, i'm not sure it ended too well but ugh, its kind of messy, james remembers some things, they speak in russian to each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 21:39:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1580450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfchester/pseuds/wolfchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes he remembers. </p><p>A flicker of red in the corner of his mind. A passing thought about a girl long ago. </p><p>A flame-haired girl. A sunflower dress. A deathly smile. She has a knife concealed in the boot on her left foot. She knows 23 ways to kill a man using that knife. He knows this because he taught them to her. </p><p>Why is she running?</p>
            </blockquote>





	where phantoms toss and turn

**Author's Note:**

> so i have a lot of buckynat feelings and this is the outpouring of that
> 
> the russian was translated using google so it's probably really inaccurate, but i love the feel of the words and i wanted them to speak to each other in natalia's native tongue.

**Paris, France // 1995**

 

Sometimes, the Winter Soldier remembers.

  

He’s on a mission in France. His mark is an aging politician with two children. They do not tell him why he must kill this man. They do not tell him why. They only tell him _kill, kill, kill them all._

A bullet in the man’s brain and the Winter Soldier’s work is finished. _Kill, kill, kill them all._

There is a park outside the building where the man’s body resides. There is a red-haired girl sitting on a park bench. The breeze catches her curls and the Winter Soldier’s eyes follow the movement. He cannot figure out why the sight of the girl sparks a bubbling in his chest, a prick at his brain. It frustrates him, makes him angry, because he can’t place her familiarity. And the Red Room has taught him that anything that makes him feel this way is a threat that must be eliminated. But as soon as this thought enters his mind, it disappears in the same instant; for a split second, he _remembers_.

 

* * *

 

_There is a flicker of red in the corner of his mind, not unlike the unknown girl’s hair. He sees a dress, a sunflower-patterned dress. A giddy laugh. The Winter Soldier looks down at his hands. They are not as calloused, not as war-weary as they are now. He is young here, in this memory._

_She starts to run through the cornfield- why is there a cornfield? Why is she running?_

_“Kuda ty idesh', moya dorogaya?”_ [Where are you going, my darling?]

 _The girl in the memory, with the inferno hair, turns to him, grinning with tiger-cat’s eyes. “Podal'she otsyuda. Tuda, gde oni ne mogut zastavit' nas.”_ [Away from here. Somewhere where they can’t get us.]

_Who? Who can’t get them - the younger version of the Winter Soldier and this girl - and why is she running?_

_"Oni vsegda budut poluchit' nas, moye solntse. Vy eto znayete.”_ [They will always get us, my sunshine. You know this.]

_She knows this. They always get them in the end. Why is she running?_

_A flame-haired girl. A sunflower dress. A deathly smile. She has a knife concealed in the boot on her left foot. She knows 23 ways to kill a man using that knife. He knows this because he taught them to her. He does not know how he knows this, only that it is a truth. The Winter Soldier does not know many truths, but he senses that this mysterious girl is one of the few. Why is she running?_

_“Kuda ty idesh'? Zhdi menya!”_ [Where are you going? Wait for me!]

_The girl does not stop running into the cornfield. The Winter Soldier sees his young hand outstretch after her. His legs do not work properly, and he cannot reach her. Her hair flies in the wind, her dress flows out behind her. He cannot reach her. Why is she running?_

_“You’ll have to catch me if you want me, James!” She speaks in an accentless American English._

_James? Who is James? He is the Winter Soldier; has always been the Winter Soldier and always will be. Who is James?_

 

* * *

 

With a start, he remembers. Memories start trickling into his mind, a little creek of remembrance, then a waterfall crashing, crashing, crashing. _You’ll have to catch me if you want me, James!_ Her name was Natalia Romanova. He was James Buchanan Barnes before he was the Winter Soldier. She was his last student in the Red Rooms. He taught her everything she knows. _Knew_. Is she still alive today?

The Winter Soldier realises he will never know the answer. Mother Russia will claim his memories again. He will be put back on the ice and he will forget this memory ever happened. He will forget about the red-haired girl and the sunflower dress, and the knife hidden in her boot. He has the feeling that this has happened before. He blinks and the memory is gone. The girl is gone from the bench, too, and her absence creates a bullet hole in his chest, just above his heart. _It wasn’t her, it wasn’t her. Stop this. It wasn’t her._

She was running from the Motherland - he knows this now. He was trained to know only Russia, only loyalty to this country that has built its foundations on the bones of the dead. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he knows that there is something else. There is hope, there has to be hope. And love. Maybe the girl - Natalia - gave him this. Maybe he experienced this foreign emotion, love, with her. The girl in the sunflower dress.

Two weeks later, he is put back on the ice. Flickers of red hair and sunflowers and knives and young hands are wiped from his mind. There is no more Natalia, no more James, no more running through cornfields away from ledgers dripping with blood so red, so fresh, so dangerous.

Only darkness.

 

* * *

 

**New York City, USA // 2014**

 

They have given him a mission. Eliminate the targets. They do not tell him why. They do not tell him why. They only tell him _kill, kill, kill them all._

But there is a flaw in their plan. They do not know that he _remembers_ \- sunflowers and knives and young hands bleeding through a bullet hole in his chest, just above his heart. _You’ll have to catch me if you want me, James!_

He is fighting with a red-haired woman, her curls not unlike the ones atop the head of the girl in his long-ago memory. But her hands are older - much, much older. She holds the knife with much more stability, much more sureness than she did back then. He can anticipate every move she makes, however, because he taught them all to her. 23 ways to kill him, and she tries them all before he has her pinned to the ground.

 _“Natalia! Eto ya - James!_ ” he says, and he feels her arm muscles tense. There is silence, apart from her heavy breathing. He does not know if she will remember like he does, if she will continue to fight him. He can only hope that his one real truth has stayed the same.

“ _James_?” She reaches up to touch his face. Her fingers shake slightly and he sucks in a breath. _“Ya dumal, chto ty umer.”_ [I thought you were dead.]

“I could say the same for you,” he says this time in English, and she smiles that deathly grin that is in his memory. He lets her sit up and she flicks her hair over her shoulder. His fingers ache to touch her, to make sure she is real and not another figment of his imagination.

“James,” she says again. She reaches out a hand, one that is young in only appearance (for she had to be at least 80 years old by now), and traces a single long scar on his face that reaches from his left eye to his collarbone, remnant of a mission gone wrong. A mission he carried out with the girl in the sunflower dress by his side. “It’s really you.”

Ten seconds of silence, and then he reaches out a metal hand to touch her hair and bring her into his chest. _“Moya dorogaya, moya dorogaya, ty zdes'.”_ [My darling, my darling, you are here.]

Steve finds them on the bridge, enclosed in each others arms, whispering frantic Russian to each other and recalling thousands upon thousands of memories.

Captain America can only make out one phrase, repeating from the lips of his best friend over and over again: _“I won’t let them get you again.”_

 

One time, the Winter Soldier remembered. 

 

**end.**


End file.
